Ciudad Presidente Kennedy

There are three theories as to the origin of the name of our town. The first theory is that it comes from the Spanish word which refers to a type of marshy swamp land. Several areas in the lower part of our town fit this description. The second theory is that it comes from the name of an herb that was abundant in the valley for a long time. The herb was commonly used by medicine men for healing purposes. The third theory is that in the early era of Spanish colonization malaria was common throughout the valley. People who contracted malaria often suffered from fierce fits of shaking. The root word of our town name comes from the Spanish word meaning “to shake.” It is this third theory that is most commonly believed today to be the origin of the name.

Due to its unpleasant nature, there have been several occasions when certain citizen groups have tried to lead campaigns to change the town name. Interestingly in the 1960s, there was a group of citizens who led a newspaper campaign to change the name to Ciudad Presidente Kennedy, meaning President Kennedy City. The citizen group was reacting to a pro-communist mayor of our town at the time. By renaming the city, this group wanted to imply that the town was a land of democracy and freedom. However, due to the fact that the name was not native to Peru and Kennedy had little to due with the development of the town, the majority of citizens did not want to change the name. Of course, what makes this story even more interesting is that President Kennedy was the visionary and founder of Peace Corps. While our town wasn’t ready to accept Kennedy at the time, only a few decades later they have warmly welcomed his vision and taken in these two volunteers as one of their own.

“Life in the Peace Corps will not be easy. There will be no salary and allowances will be at a level sufficient only to maintain health and meet basic needs. Men and women will be expected to work and live alongside the nationals of the country in which they are stationed—doing the same work, eating the same food, talking the same language...”

“But if life will not be easy, it will be rich and satisfying. For every young American who participates in the Peace Corps—who works in a foreign land—will know that he or she is sharing in the great common task of bringing to man that decent way of life which is the foundation of freedom and a condition of peace.”

--President John F. Kennedy
On March 1, 1961, President John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order #10924, establishing the Peace Corps as a new agency within the Department of State.

Festival de la Primavera

Once a year, the city of Trujillo hosts its Festival de la Primavera (Spring Festival) bringing out thousands of people to enjoy dance shows, entertainment, a beauty pageant and a giant parade. The festival is hosted by the Lions Club and since our town has a local Lions Club chapter we were invited to march in the parade. The mayor of our town is also the president of our Lions Club chapter and he invited Milene and I to participate with the town in the parade. Tens of thousands of people showed up to watch the parade and Milene and I marched for about three hours throughout all of Trujillo, smiling and waving the whole way. I think we were probably the only gringos in the entire parade, but we were happy to represent our town. A few weeks later, Milene was in Trujillo again for a visit and she stopped by a small street store to buy some water. The lady at the counter looked at her inquisitively and then burst into an “aha! I got it” expression. She said, “Hey, you’re the gringa from Cajamarca who was in the Spring Festival aren’t you?!” Mind you, this is a city of several hundred thousand people so we were both pretty impressed by the face recognition. We haven’t gotten a fan response since then, but we still like to think of ourselves as a local celebrity in Trujillo… ;)

Below are some pictures of the parade and also a short video of a horse show we saw there. The horses are trained to do all kinds of trotting and even dance to the Marinara (unfortunately I couldn’t get the horses dancing the Marinara on camera…).

Gallito Ciego Reservoir

The reservoir that washes up against the lower end of our town is a vast and beautiful body of water, lined by Andean foothills. The hydroelectric dam which rests at the opposite end of the reservoir is commonly known as Gallito Ciego, meaning “blind hen.” Research about building the dam began in the 1960s and construction eventually started in the early 1980s. The dam would result in the flooding of two entire towns (Chungala and Montegrande, which had existed for 331 years) as well as 2/3 of our town, but neither the inhabitants of the area nor the congressmen from Cajamarca protested much to the installation. The residents whose houses were submerged were relocated to a nearby area and awarded several times the amount of land they previously owned as well as a new house.

The dam was built in 1988 as a project of the State with financial backing from a German development bank. It is now managed by a private company hired by the State. Interestingly, the dam does not directly provide electricity to our town, but rather is part of a regional network of hydroelectric plants which distributes the electricity appropriately throughout several departments.

People in our town today look back on the flooding and building of the dam with little regret. They acknowledge that the project sacrificed a few for energy and the better irrigation of lands for the many. However, most of the inhabitants of our town today were not directly affected by the project; only those in Chungala and Montegrande were relocated and today live in another city. Their reactions might be quite different.

The flooding of the valley had both benefits and costs, which are identified below:

Benefits
- Massive hydroelectric energy although it does not supply our town directly
- Greater irrigation access for many farmers in the surrounding valley
- Each relocated citizen was given several times the amount of land they previously owned as well as a new house
- Jobs for the region
- Change in climate. The climate is now cooler, which reduced the mosquito population and helped contribute to the eradication of malaria in the area
- Esthetically pleasing
- Creation of a new tourist attraction

Costs

- Large financial investment
- Destruction of two towns, Montegrande and Chungala, and the relocation of all inhabitants
- Destruction of 1,000 hectareas of rice land
- Loss of production capacity for 900,000 sacks of rice annually
- Dramatic reduction in population and emigration of human capital
- Flooding of valuable ancient archaeological sites. There are thousands of pre-Incan artifacts buried under the reservoir.
- Disruption of ecosystems including the complete extinction of shrimp and the businesses associated with selling shrimp
- Loss of “molino” (rice mills) industry whose factories were flooded

A second phase of the project was planned and never completed. This phase involved cementing the ground of the reservoir to prevent sediment buildup. However, the project went over budget and could not afford to carry out the second phase. As a result, the river which empties into the reservoir continues to carry large amounts of sediment which slowly builds up and reduces the capacity for water retention. Some citizens worry that the government will decide yet again to expand the reservoir once the sediment reduces the water capacity enough; flooding more land would be cheaper than implementing the second phase of cementation. Another problem with the sediment build-up is that it creates quicksand in certain areas, which is dangerous. There have been a number of deaths due to the quicksand.

There are some tourist activities that take place, and there are aspirations to bring more tourism in the future. In addition to administrative offices, there is a resort-type compound at Gallito Ciego, which has a pool, cabins to rent for the night, conference halls, etc. Mostly businesses use the location for seminars and conferences. Occasionally there have been adventure sport competitions such as wind surfing held on the reservoir, but this is not common. There are some obstacles to developing the tourist industry around the reservoir. One, which is mentioned above, is the existence of patches of quicksand. The reservoir is also contaminated from the sewage that runs into it from various towns

Thanksgiving Travels

While Thanksgiving in Peru was not exactly the same as in the US, we nevertheless managed to have a good time. Thanksgiving happened to fall at our 3 month mark as volunteers in site (before that we were in training for three months in Lima and officially not sworn in as volunteers of the United States Peace Corps). At 3 months, Peace Corps hosts a mini retreat for all the volunteers of a particular group to allow them to share and connect after being apart in site for several months. Our Reconnect, as it is called, was held in Pacasmayo, a beach town two hours north of Trujillo.

We stayed at a hotel right on the beach, an old colonial mansion spruced up for modern times. Our venue was the Club Pacasmayo, another colonial mansion which has been able to preserve its authentic feel very well. Club Pacasmayo was an ideal spot for all the volunteers, complete with ping-pong tables, foosball, poker, big screen tvs with satellite connection for Monday night football, numerous spacious rooms for our conference use, and a friendly English-speaking manager who goes by the name of Albert.

Reconnect was a great opportunity to reunite with all our friends and swap stories about life in the field. While the mood was generally festive, volunteers were also weighed down by the recent controversial departure of one of our fellow volunteers, Leanna. Milene and I felt particularly saddened as she was a volunteer from our department of Cajamarca and we had gotten to know her pretty well. Volunteers took the opportunity to express their concerns with the Peace Corps administration over Leanna’s firing.

On our final day we closed out with a great Thanksgiving feast. Thanks to some of our fellow volunteers, we were able to have a genuine Thanksgiving meal catered for all of us. Turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, green beans, and pie lined the buffet table and for one afternoon we were given a true taste of the States again. Of course, things always get a little rough around holiday time because we tend to think more about family, friends, American tradition and our homes.

After Reconnect it was off for a few days of vacation in sunny Mancora. Milene and I went with two volunteers on an 8-hour overnight bus to the northern tip of the department of Piura, only a few hours away from Ecuador. In fact, had it not been for Milene’s last minute awakening on the bus, we all would have slept through until we were practically at the border. At four in the morning we sleepily stepped off of our bus, gathered our belongings and took a mototaxi to our hostal. We pitched tents on the hostal grounds and crashed for a few more hours of sleep. The hostal was a great find, with a swimming pool, common kitchen, camp grounds, and plenty of hammocks. For three nights Milene and I were able to stay in our tents for a very reasonable $5 total.

Mancora, like Pacasmayo, is also a beach town, but the feel is very different. It is much smaller and still an active fishing town. The sand is great and the water is much warmer. Tropical hostals line the beach and mom-and-pop restaurants set up table right on the sand. There is also a noteworthy presence of foreigners in Mancora and less of a domestic crowd. The weather was fantastic the whole time and among other things we enjoyed sunset horseback rides, yoga on the beach, surfing, sun tanning, a little bit of shopping, and great food including our first real American brunch since coming to Peru at an American owned restaurant serving genuine pancakes, waffles, omelets and hash browns. We met up with a few volunteers from Tumbes, the northern-most department of Peru and had a few fun nights including one of Spanglish Scrabble as well as poker using bean pods and leaves as currency.

To catch our bus back to site we first went to the capital city of Piura department, also called Piura city. There we had a few hours to get to know the desert city and visit the little-known but incredibly cool artisan town of Catacaos. In Catacaos we perused through dozens of artisan kiosks lining the streets being impressed especially by their ceramics work. From there it was another 8 hour bus ride back to our site in Cajamarca department. Exhausted from a packed trip, we crashed in bed and enjoyed a much-needed sleep in our very own beds.

Peace Corps Reform

Before coming to Peru for the Peace Corps, I worked at the Brookings Institution for a short while. One of my main projects there was coordinating a Work Group on International Volunteerism whose primary objective was to double the number of American volunteers overseas by 2010. This work group consisted of representatives from a wide variety of NGOs, private enterprises, universities and government agencies including such groups as USAID, Partners of the Americas, Habitat for Humanity, Points of Light Foundation, Catholic Relief Services, Pfizer Inc., IBM, and several congressional offices. One of the most active organizations in our coalition was the Peace Corps, represented by the alumni body of the Peace Corps called the National Peace Corps Association (NPCA).

On several occasions we held subcommittee sessions on the future of the Peace Corps, with involvement from Brookings experts, the NPCA national leadership, Sen. Harris Wofford (one of the original Peace Corps architects), USAID reps, and some recently returned Peace Corps volunteers. These sessions were quite interesting for me to participate in since at the time I was a soon-to-be Peace Corps volunteer. It was insightful for me to experience the “Washington perspective” of Peace Corps before actually arriving in Peru and experiencing the “local perspective” of Peace Corps.

What I took from those meetings is that many people would like to see a bigger and better Peace Corps, fulfilling the potential that JFK saw when he first created the program in the early 60s. President Kennedy envisioned that 100,000 Americans would volunteer annually in the Peace Corps, creating America’s most vibrant and effective foreign policy tool; today, the number of Peace Corps volunteers stands at 8,000, just half of what it was in its peak during the late 1960s and nowhere near JFK’s original plan. The Peace Corps subcommittee at Brookings advocated at least a doubling of the Peace Corps by 2011, the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps. With verbal commitments by the next president to double the size of the Peace Corps (with equivalent funding), hopes are high for such a change to take place.

Another topic discussed during these meetings which I found interesting was the necessity for organizational reform within Peace Corps. While Peace Corps is incredibly effective at creating goodwill and understanding between Americans and the people of developing countries, criticisms have been raised that Peace Corps does not do a good enough job improving real conditions on the ground. Part of the problem is that Peace Corps, unlike many other professional development organizations, does not measure its long-term effects in the countries in which it works. There are no longitudinal studies measuring exactly how much family incomes increase, or exactly how much diseases decline, or exactly how much the environment improves in volunteer sites. For this reason, some in the international development community do not consider the Peace Corps to be a “real” development organization. Thus, the belief is that in order to truly propel Peace Corps upwards as America’s most effective foreign policy tool and an effective development organization, it must be expanded quantitatively and improved qualitatively.

My own personal sense of this, based on the limited time I have been serving as a volunteer, is that these criticisms are basically on point. When I was accepted into the Peace Corps back in 2007, I found that during conversations with friends and family, many people were not very aware of Peace Corps’s existence. If they were aware of it, they associated Peace Corps with the 1960s decade, with “hippieism,” and with volunteer drug use. Their notion of Peace Corps is not quite up-to-date. For me, this is a shame, because Peace Corps does such great work and is by far one of America’s best foreign policy tools. Being here, I see how easy it is for Peruvians to look on TV every now and then and see their local news channel reporting something negative about the United States and believing it. People in small towns in foreign countries are disconnected from the complexity of what America is. It is very easy to form over-generalized opinions about America based on the limited information they receive. But as soon as a Peace Corps volunteer is put in the town, ideas begin to change about what America is. Volunteers put a personal face to America. Lengthy conversations between volunteers and people in their sites help to dispel misconceptions and create a genuine dialogue.

So I imagine what things would be like if Peace Corps did have 100,000 volunteers every year and I think the effect would be tremendous. To imagine the effect I see on a small scale through mine and Milene’s daily interactions with people here in our town, multiplied by the hundreds of thousands every year, is inspiring. Especially after 9-11, many Americans are looking for ways to serve their country and I think Peace Corps is one of the best options out there—but its capacity is nowhere near big enough and its presence in general American society is limited. By now it is almost cliché to say that America’s image is suffering in the world and our relations with other countries deteriorating. But the thing about clichés is that they are usually true. As a nation, I don’t think we can afford to ignore this problem, and one of the best solutions I see (albeit biased at the present moment) is to drastically increase the Peace Corps in both size and funding.

The other point raised is Peace Corps’s effectiveness as a development organization. That is, not just bringing about better understanding between America and other countries, but actually making long-lasting impacts in key areas such as education, health, environment and poverty. From my experience here, I have noticed that most volunteers are rather young (in their 20s) with limited work experience in development (including myself). I don’t think that this in and of itself is a major problem, but it just means that volunteers need more institutional structure and guidance to ensure that their projects are well-chosen, effectively managed, and sustainable in the long-run. In Peru, this is hard to guarantee because there are simply not enough trained staff to help manage the multitude of projects that volunteers undertake. In my Small Business Development program, for example, we have one staff who is capable enough to guide and manage projects, but as our program director he is swamped with overseeing 40 or so volunteers and handling all the day-to-day problems that go along with that. He simply does not have the institutional support needed to ensure that projects for all 40 volunteers are carried out successfully. Volunteers are mostly trusted to choose their own projects and carry them out as they see fit. But this brings us back to the problem that most volunteers have limited professional development experience and thus basically do the best they can.

It’s hard for Peace Corps to know if their volunteers are doing a good job in development work unless it somehow studies the changes that happen on the ground in the towns. Currently, volunteers submit reports to their in-country headquarters about three times a year. But these reports are mostly numbers-focused and not what I would call effect-focused. For example, volunteers report how many people in their town listened to a talk they gave on washing hands, or they report how many people attended a seminar on basic accounting practices. So Peace Corps knows how many people we are reaching, but what they do not know is how many people we are affecting and how permanent that affect is. Continuing with the example, although Peace Corps may know that 100 people in my town learned about the importance of washing their hands, they don’t know how many of those people went back home and actually started washing their hands, and more importantly, by how much related diseases declined. This type of information gathering would require far more sophisticated and professional studies. This is problematic, because if Peace Corps does not measure its developoment effectiveness in real terms, there is no way to know if what we are doing is working and if not, how to adjust our strategies as a result. I strongly believe that volunteers do make a real development difference, some more than others depending on experience, motivation etc., but it’s important that Peace Corps becomes more serious about knowing what that difference is that we are making and trying to make our impact a lot more effective.

If you’d like to read more about this whole debate, I am posting links to two articles below, one of which was written by members of our Brookings subcommittee on Peace Corps. Any comments you guys would like to post on these articles or this topic is fully welcomed.

Article 1:
http://devex.com/articles/where-to-go-peace-corps

Article 2:
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=F.7c399238-0e20-47c1-bf5f-1adfc7f465f3

A Fermented Surprise

A town festival celebrating Jesus. "Senor de los Milagros." Everyone gathers. Evening, at the town square. People, many people. Celebration, Music, Band, Dance. We find a spot in the front. Sitting, watching the stage as performers display their talents. Applauding and cheers. "That one was good, the next one is even better," they say. "Here they come--watch." I watch. Small children enter the stage. Dressed like Incans, face paint, no shoes, Indian feathers in their headband. "Aren't they cute?" Milene says. "Yes, cute, very cute." Music cues. They start to dance. The music propels them onward. Faster, faster, faster. In circles, in lines, in formations. They're good. But wait, what's this? The group leader comes forth from the dancing circle. He carries a big clay pot. Thrusts it upwards so that all may see. Whispers start. "What's that?" "What's in there?" I don't know. He puts it down. The other dancers come forth. Jugs. They all have clay jugs. They dip them. Inside the pot. Liquid, they fill the jugs with liquid from the pot. Silence. Here they come. Into the crowd to offer their liquid. "Not me, please not me." I don't want to be chosen. But I am the gringo. I can't hide. Here one comes. A smiling face. An offer to share. Arm outstretched, jug in hand. Pause. I pause. Think: to drink or not to drink? A quick glance at Milene. Nothing. Neither approval nor denial. She is of no help. People are watching. The whole town is watching. "What will the gringo do?" Pressure, I feel pressure. It's too great. My arm moves instinctively, I cannot stop it. I take the jug. Pause. I've gone this far. Might as well. Quickly, sip and gulp. Nasty, ew nasty. Fermented something. Probably fermented corn juice--chicha, they call it. But I did it. Pressure off. Eyes are off me. Others are offered a drink from the dancing children. Satisfied. I did it. Accepted as a member of town. But wait. What's this? The group leader heads back to the big clay pot from which the liquid came. The dancing children circle around. They dance. Faster, and faster. Attention is focused on the pot. The child bends down. Hands extend into the pot. He grabs something inside. Suddenly--he thrusts his arms above his head. Oh no. Underwear. Women's underwear. Giant women's underwear. Giant women's underwear that had been soaking in the fermented liquid for an unspecified time period. He grins. Underwear stretched above him, he parades around, showing the audience, like a WWF title belt. He is proud. Laughter, an eruption of laughter from the crowd. Not me. I do not laugh. After all, I just drank fermented underwear juice.

New Pics Up

Hey All!

We have new pics up at our Picasa Web Album for you to enjoy:

http://picasaweb.google.com/nathanhaft